Do ILM Users Still Use Slsk?

Yesterday I fired up slsk out of curiousity to see if people are still using, and observed that the community is well small.

Like other Audiogalaxy users, I flocked to slsk when Audiogalaxy was shut down. Slsk was heaven in my college years because I got into soul and post punk music through randomly d/ling files and talking to users. Going through the archives, it seemed like ILM users were using this in the early 00s yet see no new threads from 2006 on. Has Google music blogs (which I predict in five years will be gone the same way as Napster and Audiogalaxy) become the new slsk. Do you guys still use slsk? Just curious.

P.S. Yes I know torrents exist.

I still use slsk regularly, but don't engage in the community aspect. I just go on looking for individual songs mostly.

I use it but it's been running dry lately

I still use slsk constantly for the really weird shit. Just takes more patience than in the days of yore. Sometimes a lot more. But you put in your time and wait it out, and everything turns up. Or just about. Still have the occasional chat, too. Again...just a lot fewer of them than in the olden times.

I know nothing abt the community thing but it's invaluable for obscure sountracks/12"s/vinyl stuff.

for rarer things...I wanted an El Debarge album (don't judge) and no way was I going to find a torrent for it. Also good for random remixes, just stick it on your wishlist and leave slsk open for a few days.

I still use slsk but have to agree with Curtis. It takes ages to find anything remotely new. Good for the old stuff tho.

What are these google music blogs you're talking about? I use blogsearch.google.com - Is it the same thing?

Usually you can find just about any album you want to hear, new or old, by typing [Artist] [Album title] + "rar" or "blogspot" or "megaupload" or "rapidshare" into google and just scroll til you see it. Specialty blogs out there are really comprehensive.

I have no idea how those blogs manage to stay up.

The leak blogs go up and come down all the time, but the catalogue blogs mostly deal in rare/out-of-print stuff that the RIAA or labels could care less about.

I thought it had dried up too, but I learned you have to continually keep an eye on client updates. I had an older client, and I was having trouble finding tracks. When I upgraded, I noticed a huge difference in search returns.

I still find an awful lot of music on Soulseek that I can't find on the web. It's invaluable.

yes. slsk is still fantastic. i can get pretty much anything i want (that exists) on it.

yup

inc. steak

Mmmm tried upgrading to the new version months ago but it doesn't work for me. Program freezes at startup, so I'm stuck with the old version. Anyone had any similar problems?

i think i had something like that. isn't it that one version didn't actually replace the other or some kind of conflict. if you uninstall the old one first, restart and then install the new one it might help. this could all be wrong idk sorry.

Yeah, the new version doesn't replace the old version on your computer, so you have to start it up from its folder or something.

K let me try that... they have this message on their homepage tho:

the NS (new server) client offers numerous optimizations and bug fixes, and a fair number of new features over the original client. both NS and original clients may be installed and run side by side.

everyone is on the new server so make sure youre on it. the old server still has some on it who dont realise everyone migrated and its quite funny.

I told someone about there being a new server last week when they mentioned on msn that slsk seemed dead.

Yup still not working for me... seems I'm forever stuck in 156c - tried installing each and every one of the 157 versions a while ago and they all give me the same problem. The window opens and then it freezes and the program never starts.

I hope the people on the old server never leave me :P

what's the new server? it sounds like i'm on the old one.

moka are you on xp or vista?

I use it every day. Slsk has not run dry -- I've found just about everything I've searched for. A few things linger on the wishlist, but eventually pop up.

I still buy CDs for as many of my favorites I can afford. I found that lossless files are more consistent in quality, but it's harder to find things in flac. I've done pretty well lately though. A closed apple lossless/flac sharing community would be nice (doesn't matter which lossless format, a batch converter can take care of that).

Vista 6 service pack 2

The leak blogs go up and come down all the time, but the catalogue blogs mostly deal in rare/out-of-print stuff that the RIAA or labels could care less about.
― Johnny Fever, Tuesday, February 2, 2010 1:31 PM (35 minutes ago) Bookmark

Actually I think they are going after the rare stuff as well. Two funk/soul blogs I had on my google reader were deleted like last week and it hardly had anything that is on the market I believe. I was thinking of quitting using Google blogs cold turkey because starting this year I think they have been relentless with deleting music blogs.

for rarer things...I wanted an El Debarge album (don't judge) and no way was I going to find a torrent for it. Also good for random remixes, just stick it on your wishlist and leave slsk open for a few days.
― musically, Tuesday, February 2, 2010 1:25 PM (52 minutes ago) Bookmark

Haha. No reason to defend, the Debarge family is cool. Though I am a bigger Switch fan though.

Me, I have also been looking for that El DeBarge solo debut. There is one torrent in my download list, but it seems to be all leechers and no seeders, so I guess not much hope of actually getting it.

Speaking of torrents here btw. Soulseek is good for whatever Pitchpork are currently into, but not as good for other stuff anymore.

Soulseek still has better breadth than What, but What audio quality is usually higher.

yeah I use What before Slsk just because rarer stuff is harder to reseed and I try to avoid dinging my ratio unless necessary.

Geir you should be able to find it on Slsk, I know I did

I use *Slsk before What

What has one of the most liberal ratio policies I've ever seen on a private site, though, so I don't mind going after rarer stuff on a semi-regular basis.

the poles have shifted a bit since its heyday but there's still a lot of stuff on there you'd never find otherwise. bit annoying banging your head against the wall of GERMAN CUNTMENSCH RARITAT TRADER COLLECTOR SCUM all the time though. (why are they always german!!)

Dont you just hate the way they leave their towels over their mp3s.

i do actually, cos by the time you do prise something or other from their cold dead hands you get mad excited and it usually just turns out to be some mouldly old bollocks that was better left unfound. the towel of policed obscurity & sexy strict folder structures.

i don't know if i shouldnt beg someone for a what invite - is there anything particularly unique about it? not much fussed about audio quality.

No idea, never used it or the other one.

What's archives aren't as deep as maybe they should be. Pretty well stocked with stuff that's been released w/in the last 3 or 4 years, and then big name "classic" records, but older rarer stuff is really hit and miss. And even then, it may or may not even be being seeded.

If only there was a place with slsk's diversity and What's reliability. (It was called Oink, but it's gone.)

What about that other one that I forget the name of?

Waffles? They all pale in comparison to the breadth of the slsk. Audio quality's all well and good, but slsk has EVERYTHING. ...Eventually.

why not just search around for rars on google then? are what n waffles extra fast at least? do they do nice full discography comps?

no discographies (against the rules i think) but very very fast. what often gets stuff first, so if you're the guy who can't wait a day for music to filter down to mp3 blogs, it's essential

Has anyone ever used Soulseek on Linux? I've just switched over.

losing slsk has been the single worst thing about switching to mac. keep meaning to resurrect my XP desktop for this purpose only.

Isn't SoulseeX the Mac client?

yes

hasn't been updated in a while iirc.

rars off the interwebs are good - thank you moka for posting blogsearch.google.com

quality control is a big issue with slsk/blogsearching.

There are some FLAC only blogs knocking around too although I don't know how comprehensive they are.

pls tell me I can just change the port # and the new server will work with SoulseeX

even if it isn't true

worked for me

Geeze, there should be a FAQ or something to post this in. To use SSX on the new server follow these instructions:
http://forums.slsknet.org/ipb/index.php?s=94ddcf1fccee960ba07f317de5d1db4a&showtopic=21280

SSX still works great for me, but iSoul is worth taking a look at:
http://code.google.com/p/isoul/

I started using soulseek in 2001 and it has been almost singularly responsible for my acquisition of new music and discovery. Thank god for it. I hope it never goes away.

huh. i switched to the new server back in 2008 or whatever, but for some reason iSoul is getting waaaay more search results for me.

thanks!

never been invited to what or waffles, but i do use soulseek a fair bit for stuff i can't find just googling around, and lately there isn't very much that falls into that category. it's true that soulseek is king of obscurity, but lately .rar's have been becoming infinitely more prevalent. like between site:mediafire.com for individual files, and site:megaupload.com, .rar etc. and files tube there is really little i actually have to go onto soulseek for, and i listen to weird noisy garage punk bands and stuff that release cassettes...

i just reinstalled this days ago after a 2+ year hiatus from computer..
i started around late 2000 or 2001 too.. i remember napster was still running and i was downloading tracks leaked from vespertine
i've never used anything since.. no audiogalaxy or torrent or itunes

in a way, i was a bit surprised to see it still going strong; if it can avoid litigation i would expect it to last..
somehow it has always seemed (even in the earliest days with 15 ppl on at any given time) keep a perfect balance of remaining under the radar yet maintaining musical variety..

i did notice something a bit odd though, after a quick experiment.. certain search queries return 0 results..
'dirty projectors' or or 'bitte orca' yield nothing, but searching just 'projectors' returns the entire catalog...

does web sheriff have his hand in da pot ?

have you set up your port forwarding

'dirty projectors' or or 'bitte orca' yield nothing, but searching just 'projectors' returns the entire catalog...
does web sheriff have his hand in da pot ?

I wouldn't rule it out (there was a plea up recently saying they were losing money, a rumour went round that it was to legal settlements, no idea if that's true), but on the other hand the search has always been weird and buggy in my experience.

I only use slsk to chat tbh and I hardly ever load it up but the search has always been crap. Better to have a big list of friends and use the search for your list.

I use slsk all the time. I still find tons of stuff on it, plus I just wrote a script to add stuff to my wishlist without having to use the client.

Yeah I still use slsk loads.

Is everyone using the NS version? it's much better.

stil use mac ssx, on new server, can find pretty much anything. always impressed. have never chatted with anyone, ever.

the only thing that annoys is that i don't show up on people's search results - hopefully isoul will fix that but frankly every attempt since ssx to create a mac client has met with failure and the fact that ssx still runs and works fine (despite sometimes weird search behavior) despite not being updated in what.. 4 years?? bespeaks a deep level of code solidity (akin to a certain "notes" app written in cocoa as a demonstration app in 2001 - i still run it on leopard and it works perfectly just as it did back then)

Oh has the ILM chat group disbanded then? I remember it being on its last legs by the time I left.

Must re-join this week as I need some slovakian music for the pop world cup...

i never knew it existed. as i said i have never chatted on slsk ever.

Last legs? I had that on autojoin for years and never saw any chat in there! Maybe it was at non-Britisher times.

lol I still have it on autojoin but the only time I ever saw chat it was someone wandering in saying "is this the Industrial Light & Magic room?"

'dirty projectors' or or 'bitte orca' yield nothing, but searching just 'projectors' returns the entire catalog...

Exact same thing happened to me! A friend recommended 'em; "dirty projectors" = nada, "projectors" = yes

'dirty projectors' or or 'bitte orca' yield nothing, but searching just 'projectors' returns the entire catalog...

Exact same thing happened to me! A friend recommended 'em; "dirty projectors" = nada, "projectors" = yes

Slsk searches have always been shitty though. Most of the time you put in a simple word and it will yield a lot of results. Wouldn't be surprised by the word "projector" but more unique word combinations or words like aforementioned would take awhile. If a search filter is embedded in Slsk it would've been news by now.

Plus, I think Dirty Projectors would be more worried about other avenues of file sharing that slsk.

I mean "than slsk."

If a search filter is embedded in Slsk it would've been news by now

this is more likely than slsk's conventional search function being unable to deal with specific terms. i just assumed certain artists names have been blocked but either way it's absurd.

I think there is a search filter because this only seems to happen with popular current artists, I've had this searching for big-ish new releases but never seems to be a problem for more obscure or old releases.

Maybe these searches bring back a huge number of results and break the server? Rather than because of RIAA pressure? I dunno.

I like Slsk but sometimes it takes awhile for it decipher certain terms. I just don't know why. It's always better to put it on the wish list or search the artist along with a specific song within the album. I think people would scurry away from Slsk if they find out about a search filter.

Maybe these searches bring back a huge number of results and break the server? Rather than because of RIAA pressure? I dunno.

You are probably right. I remember when a new album by a pop star would come out on Slsk it would be useless. It will garner too many results then stop working or you couldn't download it for some reason. Slsk is like an old car you keep for sentimental reasons even though it will break on you at any given moment.

but i've experienced the general shittyness of the server for searches before and this seems different..
very fishy

'animal collective' = 0, just 'animal' = almost entirely animal collective results

'rolling stones' = a zillion responses and bogs down the computer

what really seems odd is that 'bitte orca' yields nothing but each word singly gives plenty results

strange coincidences...

I will have to check that out. If this is the case, then I'm surprised no one ever highlighted this.

I had slsk on 24:7 for years between 2002 and 2007. Today, 1) I'm in a financial position to support the artists directly, usually via emusic or less preferably amazon (us), and 2) have an absolutely enormous backlog of things I've yet to hear in my own collection (particularly in afropop and 80s UK post-punk).

The last time I logged on to the ILX channel (this might be years ago) I found it conspicuously unfriendly. Their/your loss.

Noone ever spoke there but everyone on this thread could of course go on there now

pfunk where the hell have you been btw

I tried out the search situation regarding Animal Collective and Dirty Projectors. It is absolutely true. So strange if you put part of the names of the band or their latest album it will show hundreds of results.

I guess RIAA has contacted them and they are keeping mum about it OR they had to put a filter due to everyone having it and it would crash people's program. Either way it is screwy. You were right tramp and Poo.

The last time I logged on to the ILX channel (this might be years ago) I found it conspicuously unfriendly. Their/your loss.

same here. seems like the worst elements stuck around and all the fun people left.

Back when Lobby was the only chat, was when I bothered with the social aspect, but I used it for years afterward for obscure stuff I couldn't find other places. My favorite s1sk memories consisted of: Conversations with crazy European ravers high off their asses,and trying to have conversations in lobby while high off my ass.

I use the google method to preview music these days, but I'm more and more resolved to pay artists for the music I enjoy as I get older. Plus, music overload has been a big problem for me, so only allowing myself to listen to stuff I can buy past a certain point helps me determine what I really love.

The new versions are the shit. Search is fixed, etc.

They haven't upgraded the Linux version since the fall. I use it often when Spotify fails me. It was particularly useful for some international compilations recently.

Yeah always a great go to. I can't believe I've been using it for over a decade. I think it's been that long.

What happened to that old ILM room?

Oh shit, I've been using a really old build for a long time I guess. I just downloaded the latest one and it's WAY different. Seems more responsive, though, once you can navigate it.

yahhh I still use it, the new version is cool